


Twelfth Christmas

by tatooedlaura



Series: Christmas [13]
Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 19:08:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10600320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatooedlaura/pseuds/tatooedlaura
Summary: It was their first Christmas where not a damn thing was happening. No one was sick, no one was running, no one was dead.It was very impressive for them.





	

It was their first Christmas where not a damn thing was happening. No one was sick, no one was running, no one was dead.

It was very impressive for them.

Everything had come out of storage, which, thankfully, Maggie and Skinner had packed up for them once they’d disappeared. Scully found all her ornaments, her tree, her lights and garland, her stockings and tree skirt. She had wanted to put everything up when they first unpacked at the end of January and perfectly willing, Mulder stood quietly while she talked herself out of it. As compromise, he played Christmas music and made her sugar cookies while she went out scouting for a job.

Part of the deal of their return to civilization was an ankle tracker for him and no law enforcement work for either, which meant Scully became the breadwinner without a badge and Mulder roamed free on their property, all 2 acres of it, his only contact with the outside world being online and any mailmen, delivery men and repair men that might come his way.

And in all honesty, he didn’t mind in the slightest. Scully got to have her family back, her interaction, her life and the smile she wore every day more than made up for his confinement.

&&&&&&&&

“Do you want to study tonight?”

Scully, happily exhausted from her hours at the lab, looked at him with eyes at half-mast, “nope. Classes are done for the break and I have two weeks of no homework.”

He gave her a classic Scully eyebrow as he handed her her mug of hot cocoa, “I know that but that has nothing to do with you wanting to study. You want to study all the time. You can study stuff and have it not mean anything in the grand scheme of homework.”

Blowing the steam across the top of the cup, watching it twist and dissipate into nothing, “am I that much of a geek?”

“But you’re my geek so it’s okay.” Squinting at her, “so, are you serious about the ‘no studying, no homework’ thing?”

Tilting her head and giving him a half-embarrassed, half-cocked, half-radiant smile, “probably not but right now, I am completely fine with leaving my medical books elsewhere and doing the decorating.” After a quick glance around at the boxes he’d carried down from the attic, “did you get them all or do you need me to carry a few down?”

“I’m here all day, Scully, I got them all.”

Looking sharply at him for a moment, she saw no ill-will or anger, just his relaxed look that spoke volumes about how he was still handling his confinement. Scully set her mug down then after planting a short kiss on his cheek, “then let’s get it on.”

“I sincerely hope you mean having wild sex with you amidst the boxes?”

“Let’s save that for under the tree once we’re done. I’ve got a surprise or two left in me and I think you’ll enjoy it more if there wasn’t a cardboard corner poking you in the ass.”

Mulder tugged the tree box open, “then let’s move it, woman.”

&&&&&&&&&&&

They hung up the things and this year, there were definitely a few more things, given Mulder had discovered online shopping and dollar stores all in the same sitting. He didn’t spend money unless he felt it absolutely necessary and not without discussing it with Scully first but he didn’t think she’d mind a few surprise accoutrements added to their holiday collection. More garland had been a must, as well as more lights to string up across the porch railing and around the windows. Scully had hinted that she wanted a Nativity scene and the atheist in him was squashed flat in the 0.4 second battle between belief and Scully, with the nativity scene arriving secretly to be put up when she wasn’t looking. She’d had to pick up the candy canes at the grocery store but had stated, with a smile, that it was the least she could do given she was going to be eating most of them herself.

When it was finally time to decorate the actual tree about an hour later, Mulder let her remove her ornaments, some of her last vestiges of an older life, a past life. The joining of two individuals into one house had culled unnecessary thing and things that didn’t seem as important as they had once been but given they’d made Christmas theirs so many years ago, all those items stayed with a bone-crushing vengeance, Scully not even allowing the slightly mangled original garland to go anywhere, because, as she admitted freely, he bought it and it was staying until they pried it from her cold, dead hands.

They put up her childhood ornaments, her father’s gifted ones, the Mulder years then, after only a slight pause at Will’s items, baby’s first Christmas ones abounding, she then hung the clear ornament with the house key in it, which they’d put back once other keys were made and the engagement ring ornament, now filled with a slip of paper on cotton that clearly stated ‘She said yes!” in Mulder’s hand.

After this one stopped swinging on its branches, she took Mulder’s hand, “think we should still get married one day?”

As soon as they’d gotten their hormones under control from the proposal, Mulder made a good point about how they should wait until things calmed down in their world before they went off and complicated them again by getting hitched in name, rank and serial number. He told her he would prefer to walk down the aisle without wearing his ankle jewelry and understanding completely, Scully had no problem, happy in the knowledge that one day she’d get to marry her most wanted unwanted man from the basement.

“Should we still get married?” he repeated, pulling her close by the waist, leaving just enough millimeters to wiggle fingers up her shirt, wiggle them again up, over and into the top of her bra, “I think we should. I just need to figure out a way to pry this damn tracker off me and we’ll run to Atlantic City and do the deed up right.”

“Atlantic City?” His fingers were making her intellect slip to repeating phrases, and she forced her mind to form at least one more complete sentence, “I thought I’d be getting an aisle in a church somewhere with mom and at least a priest who didn’t look like Elvis?”

“Nope.” Fingers moving inward to wrap around warm flesh, “I just said aisle. After the things I’ve done to you, I’m lucky to have made it through that one Christmas mass. I try that nonsense again and God will surely be like, ‘nope, not having it, move along’ and fire a lightning bolt straight up my …”

She cut his sacrilege off with a kiss and a grin, “shut up and get me out of this shirt, will you, please?”

He immensely enjoyed his time under the tree with her and early the next morning, he found her on the couch, in the dark, only the tree lit. Having dragged the comforter with him, he climbed over the back of the couch, enveloping her in the blue-patterned thick blanket. It went over her head, sending hair askew into her face and making her smile, the parts still visible to him rainbow lit from the lights of the tree. “Good morning.”

Her voice emerged as she pulled the covering from her head completely, settling them on their laps, her hair staying disheveled and adorable, “morning. It’s awfully early for you to be awake.”

“I felt you get up. I like you. I followed. I think they call that the ‘loyal dog response’.”

Cuddling up to him, “you are the best English Mastiff a girl could ever have.”

He took that as the compliment it was intended and kissed the top of her head, “so, are you gonna make me wait to give you your ornament or can I just do it now because I really don’t want to wait.”

“You’ve thoroughly enjoyed the online shopping experience, haven’t you?”

“Beats the hell out of Christmas crowds and I get to talk to the UPS guy for a few minutes. Win, win for me.”

Pulling back in horrified shock, “you got something going on with the UPS guy?”

“No more than you did with that pizza man.” Tweaking her nose, “move so I can go get your gift.” Move she did and he returned a minute later from his office, a small carton in his hand. Dropping back beside her, he set it on her lap, “Merry early Christmas, Scully.”

Amused, she opened the paper, finding not a round bulb but her gold FBI badge, now with a hole in the top and a ribbon through it, hook on the end, “you ornamentized my badge?”

“Totally.”

She burst out laughing then hauled up from the couch to hang it, “it bends the branches. I’m gonna need to hang it on two of them.” Coming back his way, she dug under the table beside them, moving newspapers and other detritus before handing him a wrapped gift, “here you go.”

Taking the box, he found a set of ten carved candy canes, all different sizes and types of wood, each with signature stripes whittled in barber pole fashion, sanded and varnished in various colors, quietly waiting to be hung on the tree. He picked up one gently, “you made these?”

“Yeah. Took me most of the year. Been using wood from around here. I’m very lucky you take naps in the afternoons.”

“Is that why you never come lay down with me?”

Shrugging, she ducked her head in embarrassment, “although I have a feeling I’m going to have to retire my pocket knife for awhile. School is getting too busy and I barely got these done.”

With a chuckle, he settled the box on the coffee table, then attacked her on the couch, neck first, then belly as he shoved her shirt up with his nose, “scalpels are just as good as pocket knives.”

“That is not something you normally hear at Christmas.”

“Well, we’re weird. Get over it.”

Wiggling out of her shirt, “I think I’m under it, Mulder.”

Laughing into her neck, “under it, indeed.”


End file.
